This paper describes the solution of a steady-state natural convection problem in porous media by the radial basis function collocation method (RBFCM). This mesh-free (polygon-free) numerical method is for a coupled set of mass, momentum, and energy equations in two dimensions structured by the Hardy's multiquadrics with different shape parameter and different order of polynomial augmentation. The solution is formulated in primitive variables and involves iterative treatment of coupled pressure, velocity, pressure correction, velocity correction, and energy equations. Numerical examples include convergence studies with different collocation point density and arrangements for a two-dimensional differentially heated rectangular cavity problem at filtration Rayleigh numbers Ra*=25, 50 and 100, and aspect ratios A=1/2, 1, and 2. The solution is assessed by comparison with reference results of the fine-mesh finite volume method in terms of mid-plane velocity components, mid-plane and insulated surface temperatures, streamfunction minimum, and Nusselt number.

The paper presents an approach that extends the flexibility of the standard lattice Boltzmann single relaxation time scheme in terms of spatial variation of dissipative terms (e.g., diffusion coefficient) and stability for high P\'eclet mass transfer problems. Spatial variability of diffusion coefficient in SRT is typically accommodated through the variation of relaxation time during the collision step. This method is effective but cannot deal with large diffusion coefficient variations, which can span over several orders of magnitude in some natural systems. The approach explores an alternative way of dealing with large diffusion coefficient variations in advection-diffusion transport systems by introducing so-called diffusion velocity. The diffusion velocity is essentially an additional convective term that replaces variations in diffusion coefficients vis-\`a-vis a chosen reference diffusion coefficient which defines the simulation time step. Special attention is paid to the main idea behind the diffusion velocity formulation and its implementation into the lattice Boltzmann framework. Finally, the performance, stability, and accuracy of the diffusion velocity formulation are discussed via several advection-diffusion transport benchmark examples. These examples demonstrate improved stability and flexibility of the proposed scheme with marginal consequences on the numerical performance.